Free Fallin: Countdown to vaporization

11102012

So I think it’s pretty common knowledge that there’s a dude trying to skydive from 120,000 feet aka 23 miles aka fuckingspace, right? If not, well then get with the internet, ya square. It’s all over the place. The guy, named Felix Baumgartner, called off his first attempt this past Tuesday because of high winds. He then claimed today would be the day. Well now they’re saying the next weather window allowing for a safe attempt is Sunday. Ok dog. First things first, you’re trying from 23 miles up. I’m no meteorologist but pretty sure “high winds” are standard up there. So what if a couple cirrus clouds are up on your jock? If you’re looking for a light breeze, try sky diving from the upstairs bar at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville in Key West. Plus last I checked Neil Armstrong’s space suit was designed for bouncing around on the moon, not breaking the sound barrier.

Now, if you’re still amped up to see this “feat” go down, you can check out the live feed here. Here’s his plan: he’s going to suit up in an astronaut outfit, float up to space in a super thin hot air ballon, free fall 23 miles, deploy a super strong parachute and lightly glide down to a crowd of cheering people. Sounds less realistic than most 3rd graders theories on how babies are made. A dick goes in a vagina guys. Sorry to burst your crane drops off a package theory, but fax is fax. But where was I? Oh right, the guy sky diving from space. Initially I thought it’s was cool idea. Guy gets to say he free fell from the moon and lived to tell the tale. Chicks will go bananas for that one at the clubs. Hmm should I go home with the guy who works for State Farm or the guy who dive bombed planet earth? Plus he’s sponsored by Red Bull, so FREE RED BULL 4 LIFE MOTHERFUCKERS!

Yet when you get down to it, the idea isn’t as much cool as it is goddamn retarded. It’s going to take 2-3 hours for him to float up to space in his magic balloon. So right off the bat, he’s sitting alone, in a balloon thinking about imminent death. Then once he gets up there he has to execute a perfect “delta” dive or he gets caught in a dangerous “horizontal spin” which I’ve got to assume is basically a recipe for puking in your space suit followed by death. Within 15 seconds he’ll be traveling over 690 miles per hour. That’s fast. And trust me, I know fast. I ran a blazing 5.3 40 a few years back. So if my numbers are right he’ll experience like 2 billion G force. That’s a lot of gerbils. Then the atmosphere is so thin that if his suit loses pressure his blood instantly vaporizes, which sounds fun. One wayward satellite scrapes against his helmet and boom, vaporized yo. Finally, if at any time he loses consciousness he’ll have to rely on his parachute opening automatically or he’s minced meat.

Count em up, that’s minimum 65 things that could go wrong.

Guy is a dare-devil, no doubt. But my biggest beef is with Red Bull on this. Sure they’ve sponsored dare devils before but sponsoring Travis Pastrana doing a “world record” jump over some pond in a Subaru can’t be classified as a similar event. At no time during Travis’ jump was I like, “ohhh dat dude dead”. Felix Baumgartner on the other hand, is basically being sponsored to free fall to his death. Red Bull’s probably thinking man we’re going to sell SO MANY energy drinks once this guy burns up re-entering the earth’s atmosphere! Kid’s are going to wet themselves for action like that. And if you think about it from a marketing perspective, it’s a win-win. Guy dies – kids want to honor his legacy by drinking the last drink he had before his extremely painful vaporization death, guy lives, every kid on the planet wants a Red Bull because maybe they too can successfully swan dive from Mars to Florida.

Even though Felix hasn’t even done anything yet, his legacy is already sealed. Everyone and their cat is talking about the skydive from space. Chance are Red Bull sales are through the roof and Felix’s probably prepping in his ultra-thin balloon by getting jerked off by half the cast of He’s Just Not That Into You. So live or die, Felix Navidad is a winner in my eyes. He’s just an incredibly stupid winner.